


Home

by gzfjax



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2019-12-31 23:11:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18323873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gzfjax/pseuds/gzfjax
Summary: After the un-snap.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First post, a little drabble just to get it out there.

He stared out at the front of the spaceship, restless. Soft footsteps came up behind him.

"It doesn't feel real, does it?" Natasha spoke after a moment.

"I'm terrified it's not real. I'm terrified that we'll get there and something will have happened. But the thing that's keeping me from a panic attack is that none of this has felt real," Tony replies.

She turns towards the soft snore in the pilot's seat. "Of all the things I've seen, Rocket I never imagined. Makes me think this can't be something I'd dream. But Tony, I've never said -- thank you for never giving up."

Tony looks up in surprise, then exhales slowly. "I... never even thought about that. But I had a hint, maybe. Doctor Strange looked through different timelines with the Time Stone, and then... while fading, he told me it was the only way."

"But there are an infinite number of timelines starting from any point in time. How could he know?"

Tony rubs at his forehead. He's thought about that moment countless nights, the way Strange calmly faded into ashes while speaking straight at him. "I've wanted to ask him that for three whole years."

Natasha smiles slightly. "Well, guess you'll get your chance after all. Get some sleep, Tony."

\--

Their arrival to Titan is fairly anticlimatic. Not 10 minutes after everyone got un-snapped two weeks ago, Tony gave an unbecoming screech at seeing a portal with a vaguely familiar Asian man -- right, Wong, invited to his wedding before there wasn't a wedding anymore -- waving excitedly at the exhausted Avengers.

"Finally! Why the final battle ended up being on Earth is beyond me, but Doctor Strange and the others on Titan are fine -- "

"Peter!" Tony gasped.

"-- Yes, yes, Spiderman is fine. Anyways, we can send messages with astral projection but inter-planetary portals are extremely difficult. I don't suppose someone could send a spaceship?"

"Yes! Someone give me a ship!" screams Rocket.

Rogers, sitting down on a hunk of concrete with his head on Barnes' shoulder, suddenly cracks a smile. "I think that can be arranged. How are they? Do they have any food and water?"

"Mantis helped Doctor Strange put everyone in a sustaining meditative state. But it would be ideal to make haste."

So here they are two weeks later, landing on Titan while Tony cranes his neck trying to see them. Doctor Strange is looking up calmly, and Mantis is jumping up and down and Groot is waving slowly, while Drax, Quill and Peter are all floating in the lotus position, seemingly asleep. Tony digs his fingernails into his thumbs painfully, straining to see movement in their creepy floaty meditation, but suddenly the ship shakes as they land and he watches them all jerk awake. Rocket darts off from the controls right into Groot's arms while Strange and Mantis are restraining Quill, and Peter --

"Mr. Stark Mr. Stark Mr. Stark I'm alive you're alive did you save the universe how is Aunt May ohhh she's going to kill me --"

Tony bursts into tears.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More posting as I go, getting a little pre-slashy.

There was still unthinkable grief. The un-snap didn’t save Vision or Gamora, nor the millions that died in accidents when half of everyone disappeared. Car crashes were the leading number of deaths, then suicides. The Guardians somehow calmed Quill down, and he looks determined to keep on as Gamora would have wanted – Tony knows vaguely she survived unaccountable odds before Thanos murdered her for the Soul Stone – but Wanda wanders about the Compound looking utterly haunted. It was less than a month ago for her, he thinks. He still misses JARVIS. He misses Vision too, as distant as he always felt. He wonders what Vision would’ve been like without the Mind Stone. Vision was always otherworldly even at his most human. But the grief doesn’t feel so sharp now after three years and a final victory. He supposes he should go thank Strange for giving him the sense that they were on track to avenge – hah – the Earth and apparently the whole universe.

There doesn’t seem to be anything such as a phone number or email for the Sanctum, however, so one Saturday morning he gets FRIDAY to make some extra fancy cappuccinos (wizards like coffee, right?) and plops it into the passenger seat of his Audi. 173, 175, 176A Bleecker street, there it is.

He steps out with the coffees. “FRIDAY, drive around for a while, or park if you find parking.”

“Got it, boss.”

It looks like a suspiciously normal apartment building, definitely not large enough to fit the place he saw when the world was last ending. But he gamely rings the doorbell.

The door opens, revealing Strange in a hoodie and house slippers, and incongruously, the bright red cape. It waves at him. “Come in, Tony.”

Tony stumbles forward into the dusty sanctum, blinking rapidly. “Uh. I brought coffee. You wear hoodies?”

Strange smiles, actually smiles. Tony feels vaguely dizzy. “It’s Saturday morning and you’ve watched me die. I don’t need the whole mystical getup. Come on, we can drink that with the buns Wong got from Chinatown.”

Tony follows him around the enormous dusty staircase, and suddenly blinks dazedly at a brightly lit Victorian kitchen. It’s much in the style of the rest of the house, but has large floor-to-ceiling windows that look out upon… mountains?

Strange sees him gaping at the doorway. “The house is partially in Kamar-Taj. We don’t really use the parts in New York much, to be honest. Pineapple bun?”

Tony peers at the bright yellow-crusted buns on the table. “Does it have pineapples in it?”

“Ah, no, it’s named for the pattern on top. It’s a sugary crust.” Strange sits back on a wooden chair and nudges a bun over.

Tony sits in the opposite chair, puts the coffees down and takes a bite of the bun, hearing the plastic wrapper crinkle. “It’s good.” Slightly sweet, mostly fluffy with a satisfying chew.

Strange takes a sip of his coffee, then taps both cups lightly. A curl of steam emerges.

Tony stares, then reaches across to lift the cup for a cautious sip. It’s almost too hot, but not quite burning. “Beyond all odds, I find myself starting to envy magic.”

“I doubt that. But you’re here to ask something.” Strange looks directly at Tony. His eyes are very green in the sunlight.

Tony fidgets under his gaze. “Right. Of course you’d know that. Although I guess it doesn’t take magic to make someone remember your mysterious last words. How did you know?”

“I didn’t, not 100%. It’s statistics, same in magic and science. I looked at over 14 million possibilities, but there are infinite ones.” He pauses and takes a sip of coffee. Tony wonders if he’s going to get a real answer, the one he knows Strange already knew he came here to ask. But Strange looks up with those unnervingly intense eyes. “The first one I looked at in which I gave up the Time Stone for your life was the first one in which we won.”

It makes sense, but it’s no less shocking if true. Tony has never been under any delusions that his actions don’t matter; there have always been paparazzi to dog his every step, and after Iron Man endless media censure and praise. But until Thanos he’s never considered that he might be consequential in the universe. It occurs to him that Doctor Strange himself probably doesn’t know what to make of Tony Stark’s apparent importance to the universe.

Statistics, though, that Tony understands. “So you thought it would be likely that there would be more winning scenarios if you saved my life. But how did you thumb through possibilities? What if the only difference is the flap of a particular butterflys’ wing?”

Strange looks unimpressed but not derisive. “You know as well as I do that there are actions that are more important than others, contrary to the saying. I looked at inflection points. What if Thanos got one stone versus another. At all the combinations.”

Aha. “So it’s like running a computer script, tweaking the parameters.”

Strange quirks an eyebrow. “Yes. Exactly. A lot of the developments in magic right now are implementations of the algorithms that have been developed in computer science.”

That magic was developing at all never occurred to Tony. A bit rude of him, certainly. “Huh. Can I help?”

To his surprise, Strange looks excited. “Probably, yes. I’m rusty on what I was working on before it all. But I’ll send you some notes.”

“Ooh. Yes. Wait. Do you need an email? Do wizards use computers?” Tony is already bouncing in his seat.

“Sorceror, thanks. And not usually. Magic compatible electronics are another developing area. But if I portal you hard copy notes, you can email me your thoughts.” He gives a flick and a pen and notecard appear, scribbling down an email address.

Tony tucks it into his wallet politely, even though he could snap a pic with his watch. He has definite plans to see if there’s anything detectably magic about the notecard. “Well. Er, guess I’ll get going. Places to go, people to see.”

Strange looks as if his face falls for a moment, but it disappears quickly. He puts his cup of coffee down and stands up. “I’ll let you out.”

Tony follows him out, back into the sudden dusty air of the rest of the sanctum, then to the front door and steps out. “Right, well, I’ll be hearing from you.”

Strange lifts a hand to wave (and the red cloak appears to be waving too?) and seems to be looking right at him again. “For what it’s worth, Tony, I’m glad the winning scenario and the one in which you’re alive is the same one.”

“I – thanks. I’m glad you’re not dead.”


	3. Chapter 3

Tony gets FRIDAY to scan the card immediately when he gets home, and actually badgers Bruce into running some chromatography and other mysterious chemistry analyses. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about it. Bruce is just as curious about magic R&D as Tony is, though, and it’s the first thing they’ve geeked out about that’s not about saving the world in a long while.

In fact, Tony doesn’t think he’s seen Bruce this animated in well. Ever. “I don’t know how we still know so little about magic! And I’m floored that we never thought about it as a thing that is actively in development. We’re like those philosophers that believed the Ancient Greeks knew everything and it’s all just rediscovery.” Bruce is waving the card around in agitation.

Tony would’ve once been mildly worried that the Hulk would start making an appearance, but that seems to be a very unlikely occurrence now. Probably for the best, as Bruce seemed to spend the entirety of his time from his re-appearance on Earth to their final defeat of Thanos in a state of perpetual jitters. It belatedly occurs to Tony that the more subdued Bruce he’d first met was probably a hard won Hulk coping mechanism. But hey, at least Bruce’s geekiness has always been absolutely genuine. “Well, Thor’s acquisition of new magic powers seems to be hammer related, and from what I understand it’s the re-forging of a very old design. But I suppose that’s like thinking there’s no R&D in cars because someone decides to restore a Jaguar XJR-15.”

“A Jaguar what? No, nevermind, don’t tell me about cars. Do you think they have magical medicine? Strange used to be a neurosurgeon, I --- aaack!” Bruce yelps as the man in question suddenly portals into view.

“We’re moving the timeline up on working on magic compatible electronics, Strange, you really need text messages.” Tony comments.

“Sorry, sorry. It drove me up the wall when I first got to Kamar-Taj too. Anyways, I got you my notes on the magical implementation of indexing and search.” He’s in the whole mystical getup today, but the effect is a bit lost by the twitching of the cloak. It seems to be doing its’ best impression of a dog sniffing at a new place.

“What about the actual well, reading of the books? Optical character recognition?” Bruce seems to have put his surprise behind him.

“That’s actually pretty simple. Magic comes from user intent, so things that are easy for people are simple to replicate. But search that resembles a computer is difficult, because you have to store all of that data in the same way a person with eidetic memory would.” Strange hesitates for a moment, then steps forward and closes the glowing portal behind him.

Tony kicks a wheely-chair over and Strange sits down, setting the notes on the workshop table. He presses the little lever on the side to change the height for his absurdly long legs. Tony wonders idly if they have wizardly tailoring spells, before Bruce’s ever intense thinking cuts into his train of thought. “We’re nowhere near understanding actual data storage in the brain, even though we can now replicate the form of it! But that’s everything in the brain at once. There’s no way to decouple a specific memory.”

Strange tilts his head. “Right. But we might not need to. The memory just has to be there, and magic can take care of access.”

Tony and Bruce look at each other in a shared moment of bewilderment, then Tony shrugs. “Well, I’m the engineer. If it works, it works. We need someone with an eidetic memory to model off of, right?”

“I think Carol might,” Bruce starts, but is cut off by the sound of the cloak thwapping about as it points a corner furiously at Strange.

Strange groans and glares comically at the cloak. Tony suppresses a snicker. “Not you too. Wong is always getting to me to perform search spells that only work for me. But I’d be very grateful if we can generalize those to magic users without eidetic memory. If we could get some fMRIs while I read a book, I think I could make the index from there. I don’t suppose you have a MRI scanner?”

Tony grins. “Of course we do. Plus Shuri insisted we have one of her low magnetic field, portable head scanners. I guess they take head trauma a lot more seriously in Wakanda.”

“Really? What’s the field and resolution?” Strange looks excited.

“0.1 Tesla, 10 microns.”

“What?! That’s amazing. And portable, that could be wheeled right to a patient. Plus vibranium resembles a ceramic more than a metal, so they could safely operate during a MRI scan with vibranium surgical tools.” Strange is more animated than Tony’s ever seen him, and he suddenly realizes that this must be what Strange is really passionate about, albeit being away from surgery for so long. It’s funny how saving the world together doesn’t tell you too much about who they are in the non-world ending times. What does Doctor Strange do for fun, anyways? What does he eat besides coffee and buns?

“Come on, let’s go get you some MRIs. Want a latte? Mocha? Snacks?” Tony heads over to his workshop micro-kitchen and starts making himself a latte.

“Just coffee, please,” Strange requests.

“Nope, Pepper made the machine dispense frothed milk or turmeric syrup or who knows what before it’ll dispense an espresso shot. She’s decided that we’re going to let go of our trauma with therapy and self-care and now all of our meals come with amazing desserts and once a week the shower won’t turn on and we have to use the jacuzzi. But even Bruce here likes my matcha lattes.” Tony finishes making his latte and starts on the milk for Bruce’s drink.

Strange looks amused behind his goatee. “A matcha latte sounds great, thanks.”

“Coming right up, a self-care matcha latte for our resident sorceror.” Tony starts pouring the milk, then on second thought gets out a toothpick and makes a little mustache in one of the cups, then hands them over.

“Very fetching, thanks Tony,” Strange says warmly with an edge of merriment as he accepts the mug.

Tony grins, feeling stupidly pleased. Bruce looks between them suspiciously.

“Off to the MRI!” Tony waves them out of the workshop, and dodges Bruce’s look for now. 


	4. Chapter 4

On the second day of Bruce’s vacation with Natasha, Tony’s starting to feel adrift alone in his workshop. Time was when he’d go for days talking only to JARVIS, but Tony’s always been clingy when allowed. He slumps and looks up at their current project, which Pepper has declared to be the current manifestation of their continued desperate and insane mission to save everyone all the time, and also “Very noble, I’m glad you two are focusing on this.” They’re expanding the medical arm of Stark Industries and looking into the possibility of non-invasive brain stimulation for depression. Un-snap or not, the rates of depression have skyrocketed, and modern medicine has lagged wildly behind in treating mental health. Tony’s been drowning in the volume of papers trying to elucidate whether and how electrostimulation helps, and pauses upon pulling up an fMRI study Shuri was involved in. The use of the vibranium electrodes allows for safe simultaneous stimulation and fMRI… huh. That’s similar to what Strange was excited about.

“FRIDAY, could you print this paper out? On second thought, also load it onto one of the new magic-proof StarkPhone prototypes.” 

Tony treks to his rarely used official office to grab the paper, swings by for the prototype he worked on and forgot about when the brain stim project came up, and heads over to the Sanctum. 

\--

20 minutes later, he’s about to ring the doorbell when the door suddenly opens. Strange is in the doorway, this time in the hoodie and jeans with wet hair. A lock of hair is falling in front of his forehead instead of in its’ usually neatly slicked back state, and Tony is abruptly reminded of watching Strange fade away on Titan. 

“Er. I am not sure when wizards work but since you don’t have a functioning phone I brought you a phone with a maybe working magic-proof case. And I have a cool paper from Shuri,” Tony stutters. 

Strange waves him in. “You may have noticed we pop in by portal at all hours unannounced, but I’m curious how your case works.”

Tony’s following him up the long staircase again, watching his bright white shoe soles stand out against the ancient wood. “Isn’t that… horribly annoying? What if you’re in the shower?” 

“Usually we only portal into designated locations. It’s like how people will swing by your office at work to see if you’re there and talk to you if so,” Strange answers.

Tony has not ever had an office like that, but he supposes he’s bothered Pepper at her office enough to know how that works. They’re back in the kitchen now, and Strange is putting the kettle on. 

“Tea? No lattes available, unfortunately,” he asks.

“Yes, please. You know, Thor went on about your incredible magic, which included besting Loki but mostly that you could conjure infinite beer,” Tony comments. 

Strange is definitely trying to hide a smirk. “I can refill it from elsewhere, it’s not coming out of nowhere. Anyways, how is this phone supposed to work?”

Tony fishes the phone and case out of his pocket and puts it in the kitchen counter. “See, the case is like a Faraday cage but for magic. We developed the material to contain Loki, but I figured out how to make it clear. And then the phone itself is responsive to light instead of to pressing buttons. I was thinking you could generate light from your fingers when you tap? But I wasn’t sure if that would also interfere with the electronics.” 

“Oh, interesting. I suspect light generation would be an issue, but light redirection from elsewhere might work. May I?” 

Tony slides it over and Strange waves a hand over it, flooding the whole phone with light. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony sees a patch of shadow disappear and reappear. He blinks a few times, then taps the on button and watches the home screen flash on.

“Looks promising, Doc. How come my phone still works?”

“Have you tried it while you’re actually in the Sanctum?” Strange pushes a mug over, then waves them over to the table. 

Tony sits down, plops down the mug, paper and magic-proof phone, then pulls his own phone out and is flummoxed to find it entirely blank. “Ugh. It’s like… running a magnet over it, but it’s not permanent?” 

“More like old-fashioned radio interference, because there’s always so much active magic in the Sanctum.” Strange fishes his teabag out of the mug, then takes a sip. 

Huh. Tony’s still not clear on why magic interferes with electronics at all, but empirical evidence speaks for itself. “How’s the search spell going?” 

“I did the index, now I have to put it together with the algorithm. Might ask you some questions when I get to it.”

“Ask away – “ Both of them instinctively jump to their feet when the Kamar-Taj window fills with snow. Strange’s red cloak and robes appear out of nowhere in dramatic fashion, and Tony’s reluctantly mesmerized by how good he looks in the magician getup. 

“Do you need help?” Tony asks, looking at Strange. He looks serious but not worried, which is comforting. 

“I think it’s probably just an avalanche, which can be easily handled. But in case it’s a magical cause I’d prefer you stay back. Feel free to finish your tea.” He disappears off in a portal, and Tony’s left in the kitchen. 

“Take your phone,” he mutters, but tries the tea. It’s some sort of mango passionfruit, which Bruce would love. Tony’s about to leave a note on Doctor Strange’s new phone, when he realizes he can’t turn it on without a handy dandy laser pointer and groans. He walks out of the Sanctum and pulls out his own phone. 

“Text me and let me know how it went,” he types. “And come visit us and bring the tea.” 

\--

A few hours later in bed, Tony gets a text. “Was a yeti bear waking up too early from hibernation, but everything’s handled. You didn’t finish your tea.”

Tony laughs at the idea of a giant bear pushing giant snowballs down the mountain. Okay, maybe it’s not actually funny. But only wizards that can defeat giant bears and snowballs live there, right? “I’m glad you didn’t get eaten,” he texts back. “I needed my technology more than tea.”

His screen lights back up a moment later. “Bears, even yeti bears, don’t view humans as prey. I read Shuri’s paper on electrostimulation.”

Tony grins, and rolls to his side on his pillow to watch a long paragraph of thoughts appear.


	5. Chapter 5

After that, they exchange texts nearly every day, albeit at an intermittent rate. Stephen spends a frightening amount of time in other dimensions, as evidently there’s a lot of mystical defense and reconnaissance that hasn’t been maintained as well in the absence of roughly half the Masters of the Mystic Arts. Tony tries not to be too obvious in sending messages whenever he hasn’t heard from Stephen that day, but Stephen seems to pick up easily on Tony’s desperate need to know he’s okay. It’s probably definitely really obvious to everyone, actually. Peter even agreed to a GPS chip. “I’m sure you can run facial recognition on the city anyways, Mr. Stark, this way Aunt May and Mr. Rogers and you will all worry less. But you need one too! My phone is really secure because you gave it to me and it has retina and spider-DNA recognition!”

So now Spider-Man is in possession of Tony’s location at all times, and vice-versa. And Tony gets messages from Stephen every night replying methodically to all of Tony’s debugging struggles and new ideas each day, then Tony teases him about how wizards know so much about engineering, and then Tony learns something new about magic. Then Stephen tells him to go to sleep. When Tony complains (always), Stephen sends a picture of himself in bed, face mashed into the pillow. 

Tony’s not… unaware he has a crush. Actually he’s not sure he’s ever liked someone so much before, in this bright uncomplicated way that has him smiling at his phone every night. It’s like a little thread of golden happiness in his brain always, and Tony just wants to save up all the best bits of his life to share and daydream about hearing Stephen’s voice in those texts. 

\--

His secret spills out while he’s working with Bruce on the non-invasive brain stimulator, putting together a mechanical stage to line up the ultrasound probes. 

“Tony, where should I start with the mouse experiments?” Bruce is unusually calm today, letting the white mice sniff at his hand. A particularly inquisitive mouse crawls up Bruce’s wrist, and starts snuffling about in his shirtsleeve. Tony has a theory that the Hulk and animals calm each other down in a Disney-esque manner, but maybe Bruce is just… good with animals. 

Tony spins the chair he’s straddling back to the stage and thinks while he adjusts a knob. “Stephen saw this paper on stimulation of the orbitofrontal cortex that looked promising. It’s a tricky area to fMRI however, so it might be hard to assess the effects.” 

“I was going to run behavioral tests anyways, but maybe Shuri can help us with the fMRIs. When’d you see Strange anyways?” Bruce asks.

“Uh. We’ve been texting.” Tony looks up, and realizes that Bruce is grinning widely.

“I noticed. Do you want to talk about it?” 

Tony scratches at his neck sheepishly. It’s not surprising Bruce noticed his copious texting, since well, usually he usually does his texting by voice through FRIDAY. “Yes. No. Maybe. I’m not as emotionally dense as I pretend to be, really.” Not anymore, he hopes.

Bruce looks up from digging the errant mouse back out of his shirtsleeve, and drops it gently back into the cage. “Of course you’re not, Tony. I’ve always thought it ought to be obvious in the extraordinary thoughtfulness of Jarvis. FRIDAY too, but unless you’re hiding something big she’s not sentient. Plus, we get dinner with Pepper every week and you seem like very functional ex’s.”

“FRIDAY’s not sentient, no. I didn’t have it in me after Ultron, and the thought of trying to replace Jarvis when he existed to some extent in Vision felt wrong. It’s funny, Jarvis always refused to express emotions to others on my behalf.”

“I won’t purport to be particularly great at that myself. But you seem to be pretty good at the communicating often,” Bruce says, bringing the conversation back to Stephen. 

Tony groans. He does want to talk about it, though. “The thing is, I didn’t know that I could still fall in love. And I don’t mean that in a dramatic heartbroken way, I just mean that we all got so tired in the unrelenting grief of still existing and Pepper and I looked at each other and we loved each other but we weren’t in love. I’d look at her and remember intellectually how it felt like to be in love, but I couldn’t remember the actual emotion. It was just gone and I vaguely missed it sometimes but I didn’t really because I _couldn’t remember how it felt_.” He drops his head against the back of his chair and lets out a frustrated breath. 

“But you know what it feels like now,” Bruce says simply. 

“Yes. But it’s also new. It’s not like being in love with Pepper, or any of the other people I was ever interested in. I always wanted them to like me and like the things I did for them so much. Pepper was always telling me to tone it down and just be there more. I feel guilty that it was so hard to be there then and now I talk to Stephen every day and we’re not even dating.” 

Tony hears a chair scooting towards his workbench, and then Bruce is right there, looking at him, serious. “You’re not the same person you used to be. We all aren’t. I used to be angry that my coffee was cold and then I’d be angry at everyone I talked to that day and everyone I didn’t. Now the last thing I was angry at was that the Hulk wouldn’t come out for Thanos, and I wish I could give this version of myself to everyone in my past life.”

Tony smiles wryly, a little haunted. “I believe that we’re different. What is it that they say, the past is a foreign country? I once brought Pepper strawberries because I didn’t remember that she’s terribly allergic, and for the Thanos mission I made every Avenger custom MREs but didn’t have strawberries in a single one. I needed that certainty even if the probability of Pepper eating the wrong MRE was a 1 in a million, even if I also stocked up on EpiPens. It’s not hard to believe I’m a better person than that billionaire playboy. But I’m also afraid that I want to talk to Stephen so much because I’m afraid he’ll fade away. Again.” 

“Tony – “ Bruce starts, and Tony raises a hand.

“I _know_. I know it’s okay that I feel like that, I just still do.” He cracks a bright smile and looks up at Bruce. “Plus you should be delighted, I remember that you like golden kiwis and kiwi berries but not regular kiwis because they make your tongue feel fuzzy. See. I’m considerate!”

Bruce laughs. “I do appreciate the fancy kiwis. So. Are you going to ask him out?”

Tony chucks a screw halfheartedly at Bruce. “I blame Natasha, you were never this nosy before. No, I don’t even know if he’s interested in men. What am I going to ask, what do you think of that neuroscience study on gay wizards?”

“Fine, fine. But maybe send him a few selfies along with all that science.”


	6. Chapter 6

Despite the occasional selfie of Stephen looking balefully at the camera when Tony tries to keep them up texting, Tony’s too shy to ever send one back. He does however start sending photos whenever he sees Doctor Strange included in the array of Avengers knick-knacks that now clutter every souvenir and food cart in New York. Stephen keeps griping that he’ll shave just to look less evil in his unlicensed merch, to which Tony says absolutely not and do you want an official merch line, it’ll make a killing, we can have detachable capes. 

Tony’s building Bruce’s mice an excessively fancy maze, ostensibly to judge whether they’re happy enough to explore, when his phone lights up with a photo. It’s an intricate set of… Avengers popsicles, judging by the way they’re all in an ice cream display freezer. The little Doctor Strange actually has a little swoosh of hair in front, just like in real life, and there appear to be multiple Iron Man’s with different versions of the suit. A text pops up below. “Mochi ice cream popsicles. Want one?”

“Yes please,” Tony texts back. “I want one of you and one of me in the nanotech.”

A moment layer, a portal swirls into existence and Stephen steps through, in full wizard get up. “As requested,” he says, handing over two popsicles and keeping a third one of himself. 

Tony grins in delight. “Look, you have a detachable paper cape! And I have a removable arc reactor!”

Stephen looks slightly amused in the way Tony always imagines him when he’s humoring Tony, and sits down across from him. He takes a bite out of the head of his popsicle, and Tony watches his pink tongue dart out for a moment. 

“What flavor are you?” he asks.

“Red bean, apparently,” Stephen replies. “You?”

Tony chomps on his own head. “Stark Raving Hazelnut! The best flavor. Where’d you get these anyways?”

“I was in Japan for a meeting to check in with their Masters of the Mystic Arts now that we’ve secured all the dimensions the New York Sanctum is responsible for.” He turns the popsicle around idly, examining it. “The detail is uncanny. So much for magic staying incognito.” 

Tony snorts as Stephen picks off the miniature cloak for the big one to examine, who detaches itself from its person to properly stare at it, or at least tilt its collar at it. “Doc, what about your look is incognito? Plus, I know you’re secretly pleased mochi-you’s beard is perfect.”

He blinks rapidly. Stephen’s disappeared entirely. Before he can panic, Stephen pops right back into place, mid-bite. Tony covers the split second of terror with an indignant glare. “Show off.” He makes a show of chomping at the arm of his Doctor Strange popsicle, and reels back abruptly when the Cloak reaches over to claim that mini-cloak as well.

“Sorry.” Stephen says softly. “Er, for the cloak, but also for disappearing. Now and before.” He looks contrite, rubbing awkwardly at his wrists. 

Tony’s heart is still hammering in his chest. “Just. Don’t disappear on me, okay?” Don’t leave me, he thinks. He picks out the mini-cloak and the mini-arc reactor and hands them over to the Cloak, which apologetically accepts them and proceeds to somehow pin all its new paraphernalia to itself. Tony grins at the sight as his heart calms. 

“I won’t. I’m here,” Stephen says, and Tony believes it. Stephen always responds to his texts, always tells him if he’ll be gone longer. Stephen always meant to come back. 

“Okay. Okay. Hey, do you want to see my mouse maze?” 

Stephen scoots over and laughs. It’s deep and a little rumbly, and Tony thinks he could listen to it forever. “It has rather a lot of lasers in it,” Stephen comments. 

Tony waves his popsicle around and shows him the awesomeness of the maze, and when he looks up his breath catches. Stephen’s smiling at him, soft and fond. Tony drops his eyes back to the maze and barrels through an explanation of how FRIDAY will automate data collection.


	7. Chapter 7

After that, Stephen starts coming by more often with bits of interesting food. Jian bing with crunchy wonton wrappers inside, fresh mango, once a whole crawfish boil. Bruce nabs some food and then claims he has to go for something or another every time, the traitor, while Tony thinks he’s going to go crazy watching Stephen lick mango juice off his long fingers. He starts leaving stuff too, pencils that he conjures out of nowhere to scribble down notes, mugs, a black cardigan. Sometimes they disappear after a day or two, sometimes they don’t. Apparently summoning spells make wizards very messy. Tony’s currently tidying up and valiantly not smelling the cardigan he’s picked up off a workbench, which is as soft as it looked on Stephen, when a text lights up his phone. “I did it. The search spell. Come see?” 

Tony grins. They’ve been getting close for days, tweaking with the algorithm so that it requires less and less active intent from the user. “Yes,” he texts back. “Be there in 15.”

He jumps slightly when a portal shimmers into place next to him, showing Stephen ensconced in the window seat of what looks like an enormous library, looking comfy despite the full robes pooled around him. “Traffic’s terrible at 4pm, just come through.”

Tony hops through gingerly and stares up and up at the absurdly high windows and shelves. The Cloak of Levitation is a bright spot of red in a far corner, apparently reading a book by itself, or at least thumbing rapidly through the pages. The little cloaks and arc reactor are still pinned on to the collar. Tony realizes he’s still holding the cardigan in one hand. “Uh. I was cleaning. Do you have spells for that too?”

Stephen waves him over and shifts into normal people clothes, then tugs the cardigan on. “Sadly, it requires a memory of where things are and where to put them. I’ve somehow misplaced my hoodie and two jackets, so I keep wearing the robes, which are bespelled to return to the closet. Anyways.” He tucks up his feet and motions for Tony to sit down, then hands him a book. 

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them? Really?” 

“I wanted it to work for books without latent magic as well. Go on, ask it for a search term.”

Tony pokes at the book suspiciously. “Dragons.” He almost drops it when the book opens itself, and suddenly it’s open to several pages at once, golden light highlighting passages. He presses down to a page and reads. “Hungarian Horntail. What. How does it know that’s a dragon?”

“The spell is cross-referencing frequently grouped terms. We’re slowly building up an index of the whole library.” He looks up and smiles. “That was your idea, to make it magic Google.” 

Tony stares at the glowing book, this thing they made together, at Stephen smiling in his handsome face with his soft cardigan with that strand of hair falling right in front. He’s not sure he got here, but he knows it has to do with Stephen trading his life for the Time Stone, the memory of his last words taken as a desperate and certain promise that it would be okay. It has to do with texts every morning and night and way too many delicious snacks, with hours and hours of discussion on the latest papers in neuroscience and the intricacies of developing new spellwork. “Stephen. I.” His breath catches at his throat and he’s just staring at Stephen’s lips but also his throat and his eyes and that lock of hair and the way Stephen is reaching for him. Stephen cups the back of his neck and Tony’s eyes flutter closed and he feels the most magic, gentle, perfect tease of a kiss. He moans and wraps his arms around Stephen’s back and waist and he leans in closer, and it’s perfect, perfect, perfect. 

They come up for air and Stephen is smiling at him, eyes crinkled. “You’re perfect,” he blurts out, and immediately goes to hide his face in Stephen’s cardigan. He feels arms hold him tighter and a hand start to rub his back, so it can’t be too off-putting. 

“I like you too,” Stephen says, pressing a kiss to his forehead. Tony feels woozy with happiness, feeling the words rumble in his chest. “I love you, even,” Stephen follows up quietly. 

Tony pulls back and looks at Stephen, who is still smiling but there’s a little bit of uncertain determination to it, as if he needs to say it even if Tony never does. Tony realizes he’s an idiot. Stephen gave up his life for him. He’s been staying up sending way too many past midnight texts and bringing Tony tidbits from all over the world. 

He says so. “I’m an idiot. I love you too.”

Stephen lights up, then smirks all of a sudden. “I don’t send anyone else selfies or leave my clothes lying around. Or bring them fresh mango to share.”

Tony makes a noise of embarrassment and buries his face back in the cardigan. Stephen slowly runs his hands along his ears, fingers snaking downwards to his neck to coax his head back up for another kiss, and then Tony is too deliriously happy for embarrassment again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had the entire fic rambling around in my head and was never quite happy with it, but figured I'd post it anyways. Thanks to all the other awesome writers and readers in this fandom.


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